katrina pain index

on the subject of devastating hurricanes, the katrina pain index, as of 2009:

0.  Number of renters in Louisiana who have received financial assistance from the $10 billion federal post-Katrina rebuilding program Road Home Community Development Block Grant - compared to 116,708 homeowners.
0.  Number of hospitals in New Orleans providing in-patient mental health care as of September 2009 despite post-Katrina increases in suicides and mental health problems.
1.  Rank of New Orleans among U.S. cities in murders per capita for 2008.
1.  Rank of New Orleans among U.S. cities in percentage of vacant residences.
2.  Number of Katrina cottages completed in Louisiana as of beginning of 2009 hurricane season under $74 million dollar federal program.
33.  Percent of 134,000 FEMA trailers in which Katrina and Rita storm survivors were housed after the storms which are estimated by federal government to have had formaldehyde problems.
35..  Percent of child care facilities re-opened in New Orleans since Hurricane Katrina.
35.  Percent increase of demand in 2009 at emergency food programs in Orleans and surrounding parishes, “an increase pinned on the swelling ranks of under-employed and rising food, housing, and fuel costs.”
50.  Ranking of Louisiana among states for overall healthcare.
52.  Percent increase in rents in New Orleans since Katrina.
52.  Percent of federal rebuilding money allocated to New Orleans that has actually been received.
60.  Percent of children in New Orleans public schools who attend public charter schools.
88:  Percent of the 600 New Orleans residents who will displaced by proposed new hospital complex who are minorities.
160.  Number of units which will be public housing eligible in the new St. Bernard area after demolition and rebuilding.  St. Bernard was constructed with 1400 public housing apartments.  Only a small percentage of the 4000 families in public housing in New Orleans before Katrina will be allowed to live in the new housing being constructed on the site where their apartments were demolished.
27,279. Number of Louisiana homeowners who have applied for federal assistance in repair and rebuilding after Katrina who have been determined eligible for assistance but who have still not received any money.
30,396. Number of children who have not returned to public school in New Orleans since Katrina.  This reduction leaves the New Orleans public school population just over half of what it was pre-Katrina.
63,799. Number of Medicaid recipients who have not returned to New Orleans since Katrina.
65,888.  Unoccupied addresses in New Orleans.  This is 31% of the addresses in the City and nearly as many as Detroit, a city twice the size of New Orleans.
128,341:  Number of Louisianians looking for work.
143,193. Fewer people in New Orleans than before Katrina, according to the Greater New Orleans Community Data Center estimate of 311,853, the most recent population estimate in Orleans.
9.5 Million.  Dollar amount of federal Medicaid stimulus rejected outright by Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal which would have expanded temporary Medicaid coverage for families who leave welfare and get a job.
98 million:  Dollar amount of unemployment federal stimulus dollars rejected by Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal that was available to bolster the unemployment compensation funds to assist 25,000 families in Louisiana.
900 Million:  Dollar amount paid to ICF International, the company that was hired by the State of Louisiana to distribute federal Road Home rebuilding dollars.
?.  Current vulnerability to storm-related flooding.  The Army Corps of Engineers continues work to provide protection from a storm surge that has a 1 percent chance of occurring any given year.  However, Katrina was a stronger storm than the system under construction is designed to protect against.  Because no updated indicators exist on land loss, coastal restoration and mitigation of flood risk due to human engineering, tracking recovery is, at best, challenging.

the shock doctrine is alive and well.

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Tagged as: politics,hurricanes,shockdoctrine September 20, 2009 @ 12:25 am

hurricane ike, gone but not forgotten

...it’s only a year since Ike plowed into the upper Texas coast, and the bay is still a mess — one that might take a generation to fix. The damage includes:

• • Tons of debris on land and underwater, including nearly 70 boats pulled out of the bay by contractors for the Texas General Land Office.

• • Swaths of pastures and protective marshland as far as 20 miles inland poisoned by the storm’s surge of salty Gulf water. The readings for some freshwater marshes ran as high as 30 parts of salt for every 1,000 parts of water, almost as salty as natural seawater.

• • Sharp declines in the population of alligators and turtles, among other species, because of the saltier-than-usual waters.

• • Thousands of acres of oyster beds buried by storm-driven sediment that will need 20 to 25 years to recover.

• • Dozens of commercial and recreation facilities that remain unusable, including fishing areas and boat launches on the Texas City dike.

• • As much as 300 feet of beach vanishing in places along the Gulf. Some natural recovery has occurred along the Bolivar Peninsula and the west end of Galveston Island, but not much, said James Gibeaut, a coastal geologist at the Harte Research Institute for Gulf of Mexico Studies at Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi.

from The state of the bay: Nearly one year after Hurricane Ike wreaked havoc across Galveston Bay, the ecosystem is slowly recovering. But will it ever be the same?

see also:
ONE YEAR LATER: Thousands along Gulf still wait to go home
Images of Ike: Before and After

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Tagged as: texas,hurricanes,houston September 20, 2009 @ 12:10 am

update: centerpoint energy executives, vampires or bastards? or vampire bastards?

in what has to be one of the most asinine things i’ve ever heard, centerpoint energy is asking the houston residents to reimburse it for $677 million in hurricane ike repair costs... INCLUDING $22 million in executive salary pay. 

hurricane ike left over 2 million (estimates range from 2.8 million to 4.5 million) without power for weeks / months and 100,000 without homes.  at the time, the city of houston agreed to support whatever rate hike would be necessary in order to restore the electric grid.  that seems fair.  they brought in people from all over the united states to help get the grid back online.  i don’t mind shouldering that cost.  (well, not all by myself.  i’ll need everyone else to chip in, kthx.)

however, um.  HELLO?  the city was hit by a natural disaster.  we are LUCKY that it was only a category 2 hurricane by the time it got to us.  the sheer number of trees felled by the storm was staggering.  and.  *ahem*  many of those trees had been allowed to grow along the powerlines, because centerpoint never cut them back.  surprise!  those trees took out the powerlines.  *gasp*  *shock*  but that’s okay.  the city was hurt as a whole and, as a whole, we’ve to do what we can to get back on our feet and that includes paying for the restoration done by centerpoint.  (btw, much love and kudos to all the contractors and centerpoint employees who worked their tail ends off to get power back to the city.  it was NOT an easy job.)

the centerpoint fuckwit spokesman, floyd leblanc, says that the $22 million is a necessary addition, because it was money that would have normally been earned through regular billing, but like, see, there was this hurricane, y’know? and like, they weren’t “recovering hardly any revenue for nearly a month”.  like, dude.  the hurricane hit in september.  consider those funds recovered during the january to august and november to december billing periods.

and let me reiterate…

IT WAS A HURRICANE.

businesses all over houston were closed for weeks, either due to damage to the businesses themselves or due to damage to their owners’ / employees’ homes.  the first week, the majority of the city was shutdown.  people had to tighten their belts and try to make do without salaries, without electricity, without running water, without homes!

yet centerpoint, somehow, is above all that.  they shouldn’t have to take a hit when a NATURAL DISASTER lands in their own backyard and due to their LACK OF PREVENTIVE MAINTENANCE does them serious damage.  after all, they’re centerpoint ~executives~.  it’s not like they’re peons.  hurricane hits them, they go stay in a nice hotel.  y’know.  really roughin’ it. 

they’re executives, they can pass on the burden of the costs to someone else.  if you’re a worker bee, you’re just screwed.  you’ve no one to help you share that burden and everyone above you on the ladder, including centerpoint energy, is going to try to bleed you just a bit more.

but wait.  mayor bill white to the rescue.  he says he’s not going to let them get away with it.

“There is right, and there’s wrong,” White said. “I don’t see how CenterPoint can explain this with a straight face.”

White made the comments at the start of a public City Council meeting Wednesday, in a clear attempt to pressure CenterPoint to back off its request.

“If we’re going to have to fight CenterPoint about paying the salaries of people who would be going to work anyway, then we can fight that in public,” he said.

go bill :D

update 07/31/09: somewhat good news, the city and centerpoint have reached a tentative agreement…

CenterPoint Energy and the city of Houston have reached a tentative agreement to reduce the proposed monthly fee the local power distribution company hopes to add to customer bills to pay for repairs following Hurricane Ike.

CenterPoint will reduce its $677 million request by $15 million and fund a new position to monitor its implementation of recommendations from the Mayor’s Electric Reliability Task Force, which were released this year. The recommendations include deploying “smart grid” technology throughout the city, creating a centralized database of customers and facilities that should receive priority in power restoration and changing tree trimming practices.

(one does wonder why a business that “owns and operates the wires, poles and other equipment that distribute electricity sold by unregulated retail providers” didn’t already have these recommendations implemented.)

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Tagged as: texas,hurricanes,houston July 31, 2009 @ 03:04 pm

dreamin’ mah dreamz

in the past week, i’ve had 2 dreams about the hurricane… (warning: i cannot be held responsible for the nonsensical nature of the following)

in the first dream, me and my friends were taking shelter in a mobile home, because “the storm” was comin’.  so there we all are, crammed up in this tiny trailer - no electricity, no water - listening to the storm rage outside.  as it came to an end, we decided we should set out to see how bad things were.  leaving the trailer, we were all stunned into silence.  the storm ~had come~ and as faaaaaaar as the eye could see, there was…........... hay.  knee deep hay.  covering ~everything~.  it was true, the….......... rodeo…............ had struck and it’s devastation was ~everywhere~.  slowly, we made our way to the…....... arts and craft tables that the storm had littered the area with.  just then, one of my friends said, “beware… the rodeo clowns may still be around”  dundunDUN!  :O :O :O i woke up right then :|

tonite, i dreamed the real hurricane had struck and destroyed everything i owned.  i moved into a motel that had been heavily damaged, but the owner allowed us to live there for free, as long as we helped with repairs.  as i set about repairing my own unit, i was interrupted by… the doorbell.  only when i looked out, i couldn’t see anyone.  so i go back to replacing sheetrock… and the doorbell rings again.  i go back to the door and this time, i open it and there’s a dog standing there.  where my mother used to live, her next door neighbour’s owned a great dane.  i was very fond of that dog and it of me.  and there she stood!  harley!  came to check on me!  of all the people that i know… a dog came to make sure i was okay.  O.O actually wound up as a fairly nice dream.  it was good to see harley

so yeah.  hurricaneonmymindmuch?  :|

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Tagged as: me,hurricanes October 01, 2008 @ 01:13 am

hurricane jokes are here!

Top Ten Reasons That Hurricane Season Is Like Christmas:

Number Ten: Decorating the house (with plywood).
Number Nine: Dragging out boxes that haven’t been used since last season.
Number Eight: Last minute shopping in crowded stores.
Number Seven: Regular TV shows pre-empted for ‘Specials’.
Number Six: Family coming to stay with you.
Number Five: Family and friends from out-of-state calling you.
Number Four: Buying food you don’t normally buy . . . and in large quantities.
Number Three: Days off from work.
Number Two: Candles.

And the Number One reason Hurricane Season is like Christmas:

At some point you’re probably going to have a tree in your house!

Continue Reading...

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Tagged as: humor,hurricanes September 22, 2008 @ 07:51 am